UNEXPECTED WISDOM

UNEXPECTED WISDOM

Epiphany 4C—January 31, 2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Mark Gafni tells a story about wisdom coming from unexpected sources:

It seems that the Master Shmelke of Nikolsburg had become good friends with his coach driver. One day the coach driver said to him, “You know, I’ve driven you to many speeches. You say very beautiful things. Moreover, you say the same beautiful things every time. Not only that, but people ask the same questions all the time, and you always give the same answer. I actually know your entire speech by heart. Perhaps the next time we come to a new town where they don’t recognize you, we could change clothes and I could be the master and you the coachman.

Well the master thought it was a fine idea, and that is what they did the very next week. Dressed as the master, the coachman gave the speech—very beautifully. Dressed as the coachman, the master watched the horses.

After the usual round of questions, a young boy raised his hand and asked a very deep question that the coachman had never heard before. Having no idea what to answer, he thought seriously for a moment. Then he looked up at the boy. “Your question appears, to the untrained ear to be very difficult,” he said. “However it is really so simple that even my coachman can answer it. Let’s call him now!”[1]

In today’s Gospel, the people of Nazareth weren’t expecting wisdom to come from Jesus. After all he was one of the hometown boys. Of course they had heard of all the wonderful things he’d done in Capernaum. But they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes. Now he appears at the local synagogue to read and make commentary on the lesson. And they are curious to see what he is going to say.

First he read the words of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…to bring good news to the poor….to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Then he told them that the prophecy was being fulfilled in their hearing. (Luke 4:18-19)

This “Jubilee message” in Isaiah would form the core of his ministry. The only verse of Isaiah that Luke leaves out is the verse about “the day of vengeance of our God.” The God Jesus incarnates is not about vengeance. Instead God is about freeing those who are slaves to sin and death. God is about healing love.

At first the people were very impressed. From his brothers and sisters sitting up close, to proud aunts and uncles, and co-workers, the people of Nazareth all “spoke well of him” and were amazed at his “gracious words.” He could have stopped there, and left everyone feeling good. We can almost hear the comments now: “That was interesting Jesus.” Or, “Well, you really made us think this morning, Rabbi.”

But Jesus continues with words that provoke the synagogue folk. Perhaps he wants to prepare them for how radically things were about to change. In response to a request to demonstrate some of the wonders he did in Capernaum, Jesus shocks them with his reply. He tells them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb: “Doctor, cure yourself!” And before they could settle down from this challenge, he moves on to cite two examples from scripture about how God’s divine favor was given to pagans.

In a single moment, the friendly people there changed into a lynch mob. This wasn’t the kind of preaching that they wanted to hear. In their estimation Jesus had moved from being “a home town boy who made good” into being “a crackpot.” What was it that enraged them so? What made them kick him out of the synagogue, hustle him out of the town, and take him to the edge of a cliff to throw him over?

Well Jesus identified himself with the prophets when he said, “Today this has come true in your hearing.” By way of defense and explanation of that line, Jesus points out what happened in the days of the prophets, Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was sent to help a widow—but not a Jewish one. Elisha healed one solitary leper—and the leper was the commander of the enemy army. That’s what did it right there. Currently, Israel was under the thumb of another enemy army—this time, the Romans.

N. T. Wright says:

His hearers were, after all, waiting for God to liberate Israel from (the current) pagan enemies. Instead Jesus is pointing out, that when the prophets were active, it wasn’t Israel who benefited, but …the pagans….The grace of God that Jesus spoke about was just too free…and unbounded for (the people listening).[2]

At his challenge to their usual way of thinking they became enraged. When wisdom comes in unexpected ways it can require courage in order to express it. Consider the work of the Holy Spirit in a six-year-old little girl. Her name was Ruby Bridges, and she was a very small heroine in the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr. told her story to Robert Coles.[3] How she had, day after day, walked past menacing mobs in New Orleans, as she made her way to school at William Franz Elementary. Coles investigated the story himself. He learned that by the time Ruby arrived at William Franz, the white children had already been withdrawn by their parents. So, Ruby sat alone in the classroom with her teacher.

The teacher told Coles that at first she was “reluctant” to be working under the new “federal desegregation order,” but she stayed anyway. She went on to say:

I don’t know where little Ruby got the courage to do what she did…I would watch her walk with those federal marshals, and you couldn’t help but hear what the people said to her. They called her the worst imaginable names. They were ready to kill her…there must have been 40 or 50 grown men and women out there on the streets every morning and every afternoon. [4]

When Coles talked with Ruby, trying to understand what was going on inside her. The little girl kept telling him, “I’m just trying to go to school.” When asked by Coles if she might ever be afraid, Ruby told him matter-of-factly: “I just do what my Granny says; I just keep praying.”

Dr. King himself once said: “When people ask me where I get the courage….I say the answer is very simple. I can’t not do as I’m doing…..”

We’re also called to be courageous and by the Spirit’s power to bring: good news to the poor, the word of release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. We’re to boldly proclaim those words of Isaiah and Jesus. We’re called to be unexpected voices of wisdom just as the Spirit has gifted us to be.